The Five Most Disappointing Video Games of This Generation

I recently wrote a post about the most disappointing summer blockbusters, movies we thought were going to be fantastic but ended up letting us down. I thought I’d try something similar with video games, as this has happened plenty particularly in the last console generation.

Some of these are slam dunks, a few might cause a bit more controversy like how I can’t STAND Halo: Reach. Yeah, I said it.

Check out the list below, and check back for another iteration in fifty years after we’ve all been disappointed by Half-Life 3

Fable 3

Google “Fable 3″ and you’ll find my 2,800 word behemoth of an article near the top of the results that goes over in extreme detail why I deemed the game an actual “embarrassment to video games.” I won’t go into ever point here, but suffice to say there’s plenty to talk about.

It was such a disappointment to me because I really did like the other games, and felt like the second title improved on the first a great deal. In turn, I was expecting the new chapter to improve further, not keep everything the same while making a very few obvious aspects worse.

The game was just sloppily put together, as hilariously evidenced by my white character and wife producing a black child. But past the silliness of the bugs, the end game mode of “becoming king and ruling” which promised to be so profound was idiotic and rushed. What should have been an entire new half of the game was a mere hour of stupidity that almost always resulted in a lackluster ending.

APB

I’ve never bunch much for MMOs. The genre seems to be dominated by the types of sword and sorcery games I’m generally not fond of, which is why APB seemed like such a freaking cool concept. The character creator allowed you to create punked out versions of cops and robs in a futuristic, anarchistic society where gangs ran wild and the remains of the police tried to hold them at bay. It look fantastic, and the concept was incredibly attractive.

Unfortunately, it ended up being one of the biggest disasters in video game history , so much so that I didn’t even dare play it myself to expose myself to the horribleness. If you’re going to charge $15 a month for a game, it better damn well be worth it.

But worth it , it was not. The game was riddled with bugs, glitches, imbalance issues and a general lack of anything to DO. It recently came back after some retooling as free-to-play title, but it’s never going to live up to the potential of the concept.

Halo: Reach

This will probably be the most controversial item on the list, as while these others are generally pretty derided as bad games, Halo: Reach has a great many fans, some of whom still play the game to this day. I was the biggest Halo 3 fan you could ask for, but in Reach the game evolved into something I simply did not like.

They may have seemed like a small addition, but the inclusion of armor abilities in every match were a big step backward for me in terms of gameplay. Some like sprint were harmless enough, but the jetpack just made many maps a goofy kind of floating FPS, and others like armor lock would completely break the game. “My armor lets me become immune from all damage and burst down enemy shields.” “Uh, well mine lets me run a bit faster.”

Bringing back the health bar was a mistake as well, as it was just enough to make fights seem unfair if you ran into someone while already damaged. I never got used to the heavily reduced rifle butt damage, and all in all it just felt like a step backward for the Halo series in many ways. I did like the executions though.

About The Author

Paul

I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point.

J5

The Club – sounded like an awesome idea about elite killers getting together to see who’s the best, turned out to be a shooting time trial game.

Nick

*cough* TES4: Oblivion *cough*

I was just happy that Reach brought back the proper pistol.

Isaac

Are u kidding me oblivion is one of the best games ever if you put your time into playing side quests and all major quests such as the fighters guild 100s of hours of gameplay, all skyrim did was make better graphics improve your ability to level up and customize your character and switch combat a little the side quest are literally 10 to 15 quests you play over and over again in different towns and it takes like 3 to 5 hours to OP your character if your goodand some of the coolest things weren’t actually quests so u would have to google how to do them don’t get me wrong skyrim was a good game standalone but when compared with oblivion it is a flaming bag of shit

Bad Acid

Diablo 3 – I understood that the RMAH was supposed to curb people away from using 3rd party sites for the best of the best items. Little did I know it would be the sole focus for the game, and every play issue would be balanced around it, so not only were the best of the best still on 3rd party sites, but even mediocre items that still couldn’t make you feel powerful like Diablo 2 would cost you quite a pretty penny. The solution to feeling weak? Play a few more hundred hours. Right, that’s totally what I want to do on a game that simply isn’t fun. More disappointing in that it instantly me away from being a Blizzard fan after more than a decade.

drunkenjunk

huge objection to reach it’s my favorite one.

RAF

Don’t know if you remember Hellgate:London. It was overhipped and then it “sank”.

Andy

Saints Row 3

I don’t wanna get into why, because I’d be here all night.

http://nope hallamq

Ninja Gaiden 3 for XBOX 360. And at least a couple of Resident Evil games.

Harry Mandangus

Two games come to mind:

“Too Human”
I think it spent some time in development hell…like about 5 years or so. The thing that got me pumped was the futuristic cyber-punky version of Norse mythology. It could have been badass, but my god was the combat boring and the very definition of repetitive. The loot system was pretty atrocious as well. I was foolish to pre-order this game in full (don’t do that anymore) and had to force myself to beat the game to get any sort of return on the investment. This one hurt my heart.

“Prototype”
I couldn’t force myself to finish this one. For some reason I felt it would be smarter to cut my losses 15 hours into the game instead of trudging through THE most repetitive and lackluster combat I’ve ever encountered. Again the awesome ideas were there (morphing into absorbed citizens or military people to sneak through the bases, all the other awesome combat powers that were still cool even though the combat sucked) but they were shadowed by the previously noted shitty repetitive combat and missions. Don’t ask me about the story…I’m sure it wasn’t that bad but I have forced but only the basic memories of that game.

Wasted potential all around.

ingnious

I understand the Reach complaints. My biggest gripe was (besides armour lock interupting the flow of battles) the poor maps, it shipped with maybe 8 actual real maps, half of which where very poor compared to previous games and the DLC maps which are a huge improvement never show up in matchmaking.

I still play it though and am hopeful Halo 4 will find a better balance.

Draugr

All fable games should be on this list, so should diablo 3

The article is about most dissappointing. How diablo 3 doesn’t make it on that list is beyond me – It was successful, but the disappointment was palpable.

Brink was an excellent choice…such promise.

trashcanman

Good list, but your inclusion of Halo was weak. A step backwards implies devolution where armor abilities was clearly an evolution. Some people can adapt to change and some cannot. I thought the armor abilities added a ton of depth to multiplayer. Armor lock had the capacity to break the game if an entire team used it, but it never happened to me. I don’t really get why people have problems with an enemy who has to sit in one place for a few seconds. Makes lining up headshots and tagging with sticky grenades mighty easy if you ask me. I call that MEAT. Also, there was no shortage of game modes. And then there was Firefight, which ended up becoming my favorite mode by the time I was done. Hell, that could have almost been a retail game by itself. But hey, if simplified twitch-shot campfests are more your speed, enjoy your 3-a-year identical COD titles. Maybe some of them will have a new gun or something to differentiate them.

God, Fable 3, though. I really feel you on that one.

Diablo

My personal experience…and I am kind of torn by this…

Fallout New Vegas.

Fallout 3…I swear I am still finding new little easter eggs. The world created seemed so filled with life and just sucked me in. And other than the first DLC about Alaska, I thought they were all pretty good. Honestly, it was almost like being in a well crafted novel than just playing a video game. Especially when I noticed just how closely they replicated the DC metro system.

But New Vegas just never managed to suck me in. The DLC’s never felt like they were finished or even thought out. There never seemed to be the hidden, crazy stuff that was in FO3. Hell, most of New Vegas just felt empty. I realize that its supposed to be a desert but it never felt like a real world.

I took me a while to admit it…but I didn’t like the game when I compare it to FO3. Huge disappointment to me.

Korky

@Diablo: Fallout 3 was definitely a stronger game than New Vegas, especially regarding exploration. NV felt too tied to Vegas.

Mojojojojo

Well, I must say I agree on Reach being there. Ive finished every single Halo game, but I just couldnt complete reach, not even as co-op. The singlerplayer nor multiplayer were very fun to me.
Hoping Halo 4 will make up for it tho, it looks awesome this far.

Trent Taylor

Force Unleashed. So much marketing, all to just be meh.

Schiapu

Spore. My god, that is the definition of disappointment.

Jeff

The Force Unleashed 2. I liked the first one, but the second one…Too many changes were made that made the game frustrating to play. My least favorite: in the first one your character would nonchalantly deflect blaster lasers if you had him upgraded to do so. And his health bar could be upgraded to where he could took several blaster hits before dying. In the second one I think it took like three hits to kill him. :/ Maybe a few more, but far too few when you’re trying to charge up an attack against multiple enemies. Plus the story just wasn’t as entertaining as the first. Or as long. It was so short that when I beat Vader I was thoroughly convinced a prank was being played on me. So freaking disappointing.

Lima Zulu

Paul, you do know that Halo: Reach was a prequel. That it would go backwards in some regards? And reduced melee damage was a consequence of playing a Spartan-III?

Every review you write, I get the feeling you refuse to read manuals and so on and skip cutscenes. It’s kind of annoying.

Charlie Ward

I thought I was the only one who loved 3 and was let down by Reach. Maybe you’re NOT a poseur, Paul. NattyB is, though, for sure. Seriously, though, I don’t even like to think about how many hours I wasted on 3 only to have Reach collecting dust on my shelf two or three days after I beat the campaign.

Collen

Sorry, but I will be one of those people who defends reach. I got tired of halo 3 after the first dlc came out. When 3 came out it was run directly at each other with assault rifles and the first person to melee wins. Than after that it was BR death on every map. Halo Reach’s addition of the armor abilities added another dimension of play and the only reason why they seemed over powered at first is because people were stuck with the original mentalities of 3. I never felt that any armor ability was more powerful than any other, you just had to find the strengths of each one and learn to use them to your advantage.

Sargon

Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption should be there. Sure they were some what enjoyable, but GTA 4 was not as much fun to play as previous GTA installments, especially not as good as GTA SA was. RDR failure come at the very end, where Rockstar throws whatever good reputation you build for John Marston and throws it away. What was the point in trying to be a hero and get good fame after all that? Waste of time, kill every one in any future Rockstar game you play because it doesn’t really matter. Morality system my ass.

Covalent

The ending of Mass Effect 3.

Lukedaddy

Haha halo reach sucked and you all know it

nyxaria

i dont know what most people expected from Duke Nukem … i enjoyed every second of those 5 hours gameplay for the~40 bucks i spend on it… childish cheesy 80’s actionmovie humor. exactly what i expected.

Nick

Fallout NV was a better game; a better RPG; and better Fallout game than Fallout 3.

thenottakenname

Unfortunately, there have been a lot of games that have amazing concepts, but just can’t deliver. I really would have liked games like APB and Brink to work. We just live in a world where all funding goes to tried-and-true remakes, instead of original ideas which are just pushed out too soon.

That guy

You say Reach was a step backwards, but your idea of moving forwards is staying the same. This game was only dissapointing to you and others because you couldn’t adapt to change, of all the abilities armor lock is probably one of the least usefull, seeing as how it just gives the enemy team time to form a firing squad. I do miss dual wielding guns though.

RustedFaith

ROFL watch out for the Halo Reach brigade, all the 12 year olds came back from school and started commenting …

Zaggnita

Diablo 3, the simple fact that I had to be freakin connected to the internet to play it…big turn off. One of the reasons why I liked Diablo 1 and 2 was that I didn’t have to be connected to the internet. I could play anytime anywhere. Diablo 3? I can’t play five seconds of the game without lag. I have a horrible internet connection. Why…why couldn’t they at least have an option to play online/offline?

Another disappointing game, MW3 *gets shot* I love CoD games, always have always will. But, mulitplayer in MW3 to me is the same as MW2 and there is no strategy with people. I like playing Black Ops simply because there are more people playing with strategy rather than just running around like chicken with its head cut off and bullets spewing forth.
No strategy in MW3, and nobody is nice. At least the people Ive played with. Gaming is supposed to be fun, when I play MW3 it is not fun(except for when I play campaign)I get spawn camped, I hate the guns that you first get, its even harder to get good guns…its hard to level up when you have my schedule…
The list for my hatred of this game goes on. Nobody will change my mind…send me all the hate mail you want, I won’t listen…hate on me or whatev…but to me MW3 sucks balls. And I desperately hope that Black Ops 2 will not be another MW3.

Johnny

All call of duty’s will be generally the same, the only thing that really changes are the guns and the faces. If your tired or don’t feel like thinking than CoD is fantastic. Otherwise it’s a mediocre shooter that is all about holding the trigger down.

undead

Diablo 3 – Twelve years in development and it ended up with less game play content than an iphone app.

Mr. Right

This list is pathetic and so are most of the comments.

Anyone who thinks Saints Row The Third or the first Fable were disappointments needs to sell their games and consoles, because such a person will never be anything but a shit gamer.

Eric

Did you even play Fable 2? Was a steaming pile compared to Fable 3.

usrev2

to be most disapointing it has to have tremendous hype then be nothing like promised.
GTA IV should be on the list, san andreas and vice cities could be argued as some of the best games last gen, GTA IV was boring in less then 2 weeks.

Duke nukem had no real hype, so should be removed.

I am split between fable 2 and 3, I mean, 2 was the sequel to fable 1 which was a pretty good game, but 3 was supposed to let you be king( being king was supposed to be the 1/3 point in the game but ended up being the 3/4th)
in the end both sucked, I think fable 2 was worse though, at least 3 had some sort of end boss…

most the list I agree with though.

Thanor

I understand APB is in here, because paying monthly for this game was no good idea. But the remake (APB Reloaded) really is worth a try – of course it’s not a game for everyone, but they’re improving it all the time and you can really have long-term fun with it. Some weapons maybe imbalanced until now, but with good tactics there is no problem in beating up even these.

xlr

Haze

umut

I think brink and apb is not disappointing as you said,ı have these 2 games and ım still playing.f2p apb(apb reloaded) is better then the first game(apb) and brink just got 1 problem,weapon balance is too high,nearly all weapons same but ıt was not a diseaster game was still funny.Maybe you can add pay day:heist and sniper elite v2(ı just remembered these games but they are really disappointing..)

KingOfArcadia

I’ll have to agree with the vote for Fallout New Vegas. I suspect the reason I didn’t care for it as much as FO3 is because I played both back-to-back, dumping about 450-500 hours between the two over the course of a year. FO3 was a breath of fresh air; FONV felt like cold leftovers. I must admit that I really enjoyed some of the tweaks they added to FONV (like Hardcore mode), but everything else just seemed bland compared to FO3.

Satyroth

Were is Mass Effect?

Fierce Deity

Fable/Fable: the lost chapters were great game(s). fable 2 was also good but not as good as Fable/(TLC). the game-play never felt frantic with the fact that you can never technically “die” instead you get “knocked unconscious” and lose a bit of exp and receive a barely noticeable scar and wake up a few moments later back in combat to finish of the enemy that knocked you out in the first place. Fable 3 on the other hand was just a plain insult, combat dumbed down and the promised weapon “customization” only really is just a waste of time because there are a maximum of 4 weapons that can be customized and they only changed based on the choices you’ve made, did you choose to lower taxes or decide to start taxing children? well here’s a barely noticeable change. and they dumbed down interacting with npcs to the extent if it not even being worth-it and if you want them to be your “friend” you have to do a stupid fetch quest. But for all three games talk about freedom but all three are extremely linear.

ando

Totally agree with you about FABLE 3 and DUKE NUKEM FOREVER:

-Fable 3 had more bugs than LEGO Pirates or Batman 2; in particular when my character (having done everything GOOD, with exception of HAVING to kill a shopkeeper who owed money – you couldn’t do otherwise) tried holding hands to take people on missions and was unable to, or the person got stuck in a bush/ non-accessible area

-Duke just sucked from the start: imagine his first “mission” is to pick up a turd from the toilet! Give us the old DUKE NUKEM 3D any day…with it’s classic line, “It’s time to kick a** and chew bubble gum…and I’m all outa gum!” (like with Doom or Wolfenstein: if it ain’t broke don’t fix it)

RichardMcB

Diablo III should most definately be on this list!!..

regardless of how many websites, blogs, and magazines, Blizzard paid off through advertisement dollars – the overhyped game sucked chunks.. with their WoW experience, talent, and money, how Blizzard could’ve missed SO badly with DIII is damn near insulting to its fanbase.. see ya’ Big Blizz, you ain’t getting anymore of my hard earned money…

JacobMC

Most limited spectrum of ‘disappointment’ I’ve ever seen.
Sonic 3 is disappointing.
FFXIV is disappointing.
Box office bust is disappointing.
Brink, Fable, and even Reach just aren’t as good as what they were intended. They hardly count as the most disappointing for this generation. GG.

quagmire

ALL halo games suck ass, so does call of duty, the call of duty fans, halo fans, and anyone who disagrees but the biggest most unadulterated steaming pile of shit was lost odyessey it was that bad i took it out the back and shot it with a 12 gauge….. thankfully it was 2nd hand

jamie

how can people say fable 2 was bad i still play d game halo reach was excellent but brink was by far the most disapponting game ever and i did tink fable 3 wud b better but it was alrgiht

Solx

Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2, What the fuck Square Enix was on when they made this shit-storm is a god level drug.

I have never felt more unneeded than when i played ff13.

Auto-Battle………..For the new generation that thought selecting attacks was just to hard.

I controlled 1 character and could NOT move them. Could not transfer control to another character in a battle.

If the character that you controlled dies then it is game over….. despite there being 2 other dumb asses that could easily throw a Phoenix Down.

Could NOT control the Summons……. to which they acted fucking retarded.

TP…..do people even think anymore.

The battle system barely was playable with 3 people, but forced you to play with only 2 for 60% of the half ass story.

Doom being used as a way to make the game more challenging…… Doom = you die in 3 minutes no matter what = cheapest way to make something harder. Every boss and Eidolon did this shit.

Weapon upgrades/the system to do it was just moronic.

Could not sprint in the open world, so you had to fight everything and getting a sneak attack was nearly impossible.

The crystariogenisi…….FUCK IT the fucking sphere grid rip off was pathetically shallow and lackluster.

The store prices were just broken and not thought out.

Changing Classes…..err Paradigm Shifting…. Who the fuck thinks of these shitty names…..anywho when you changed, classes the characters would show a stupid animation, that you were forced to watch, WHILE THE NPC WERE STILL ATTACKING.

No towns….wtf?

Map was piratically a straight line.

Characters sucked…..FUCK YOU HOPE!!!!!!!!!!

Story was boring and predictable.

Tie the Right Analog Stick down and (with a turbo controller) set the auto fire to the A button and tape it down…… the game plays it’s self.

It felt like this game was a fucking 60 hour movie with shitty D rated actors and a director on every drug imaginable.

Gond

I’m impressed no one mentioned Skyrim. It was probably the most disappointing game I’ve played in the past 3 years (of course I skipped many of the games recognized as “disappointing”).

Muff

@Gond I’m impressed that you went out of your way to piss off half of the internet. The reason nobody mentioned Skyrim is because we’re not trolls that think it’s cool to be contradictory.

Samantha Jean

I know I’m way late commenting on this, but I totally agree that Final Fantasy XIII should be on this list. As a huge FF fan, I totally raged when I realized how big a pile of shit that game was, completely agree with everything Solx said. That game played itself. Where are the side quests? What the hell happened to map exploration? I know this site isn’t big into music, but for me FFXIII was like the St. Anger of Metallica’s career…

Austin McCaslin

The only truly good game ive ever played was fable/tlc it had everything a 6 year old could ever i want i remember trapping the tailor in bowerstone beside his store and stealing clothes and selling them to him until i could by the plate armor set XD omg good times ill have to catch up on it tomorrow. Yeah i still play it it never lost its awesomeness.Go Twinblade!

yellowwindow0

mine would goes like.

– final fantasy 13. the same things solx did already mentioned.

– resident evil 5 and 6. just when i thought 5 is piss poor RE6 sounded like a low budged horror movie, ( leon’s campaign ) what’s the point in leon said to helena to shoot the zombies in the head where zombies this time will still fight’s back even when there brain is blowing away with half of there heads? believe me some zombies still attacked me and put’s me to death status and they don’t even have a head. zombies now can fly like superman uses rifles and even operate leavers to set death traps O_o
i thought zombies only thinking ( if they can think ) to only attack you in hoard and only care to grabs you and eat’s you alive, could talks all day about it but i need to name the rest of my list.

– tomb rider underworld on all platforms. but i can’t believe that the game is much longer and the levels are slightly bigger in the ps2 version.

– POP 2008 and sands of time. the first POP game this generation just when i thought it might be good with the new style, it became so frustrating to play running back and forth, and so i thought going back to the original root will save it, in sand of time, it got’s even worse and never feel’t like the ps2 original, it’s just a fancy graphics with boring gameplay.

Joel

I must protest. I don’t see HOW you can put Reach on the list without adding Halo 4. I even bought the stupid expansion pack just so I could actually play FFA – and I hate it. I play snipers and swat and that’s pretty much it. They tried too much to turn the multi-player into COD.

Full Disclosure, I only played Halo 3 a couple of times. I bought the ODST game, but only played the campaign before trading it when Reach came out. I basically went from Halo 2 to Reach. There’s just so much NOT to like about Halo 4 compared to earlier games – even Reach.

Halo 2 is still the most fun in terms of pure enjoyment.

Flash

That’s a lie,?skyrim is one of the top five best games I’ve ever played. You have no taste whatsoever.

Irojap

You are absolutely nuts…armor abilities added a whole new layer of complexity and strategy to halo. Reach was easily the best of the series until Halo 4. Also, where is Dragon Age 2? That game just went in a totally different direction than its predecessor. It was like they went out of the way to alienate fans.

Nathe

To anyone who thinks that Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3, is a knob job, a troll, or a mentally handicapped rodent. FNV was by far, the most disappointing game I have ever played. Talk about going from one of the greatest RPG’s of all time (ya, I said it), the that slack was awful. Buggy as hell, terrible environments, awful story, and it was 2x smaller than D.C in Fallout 3. The only thing they did right was add hardcore mode and ADS. Which I gotta say, really could not have been that difficult.

Herp

Gond, I kinda agree.

I played Oblivion first (I can’t believe I’ve just heard of TES), and I thought it was a wonderful game. The environment was a bit of a letdown, but that’s maybe because I haven’t really explored out of the cities.

I played Skyrim, and the first thing I noticed : Classes were gone, most skills were gone. And seeing as how you’ll mostly be seeing white and gray (Snow and mountains), it gets monotonous.

Weptakil

Herp as a massive skyrim fan I would just like to disagree with you. First of all yes the whole “pick a class or make your own” was pretty cool but it has been removed for something better where now you get a chance to decide in game your class is whatever you decide to use, all they did was remove the titles. And secondly if you had played the game for longer 5 seconds you would notice that there are multiple environments and anyway skyrim is supposed to white and snowy around the mountain areas, you know like real life.

Red

“…but the problem is when you develop something over more than a decade, it’s hard to keep up with the times.”

StarCraft II says hello.

Dan W.

Isaac, if you play on a hard difficulty being good is the only way to barely survive. Even with grinding it can get excruciating. My most recent char I maxed health and use a shield and still have problems.

Some of the quests do get repetitive but my first playthrough I couldn’t get enough of Skyrim. 100’s of hours of content is there too. Maybe some of the side quests were as great but other features make it amazing. Sitting in your house and reading lore–and the entertaining stories are actually funny/interesting/repulsive and the informative ones give added depth. If you’re too impatient to read I get why you’d not like that, but to call it a bag of shit in comparison is over doing it, I think. Some people have different tastes in which aspects need to be improved.

Disappointment? No. Now Dragon Age II…

The character’s personalities are all basically spelled out for you, meaning you can completely cheat the system to get everyone to like you.

The graphics, while improved, are bland, uninspired, and belong on the PS2.

Gameplay has been mainstreamed into a generic mess. The auto attack…I mean, mash a button attacks are so fancy that it makes special attacks seem useless and uninspired and are only there to add variety, no real strategic value.

WTF did they do the Qunari? Just…wow. No one humans and them don’t get along. They feel so out of place, especially because we saw what they should look like. Minor complaint, really, but it’s jarring.

The areas feel so empty. The whole game seems empty, really. It’s only redeeming quality is dialogue can be interesting, however; like how in Mass Effect you don’t really know what you’re choosing, it’s even worst here: a lot of the time the character will say something you really didn’t intend to because the option is so damn vague. If it’s going to be so vague, just go all the way with a boring “good” “bad” “middle” “evil” “angel” button… or at least make it obvious what kind of dialogue you’re making the character say. I’m unsure about this, really, but something was just wrong there. Mass Effect did it better, and you may be like, “no surprise there” but in this point it really didn’t have to the case.

Anthony

For me, the fable series is the poster child of disappointment and not for obvious reasons. I mean, Fable: TLC was well received, and for a good reason. It was actually somewhat innovative. It embraces a sort of “in the shoes of the hero” approach. It makes you almost like a co-narrator, and did so before this was more popular.

Choice is a viable focus, and has an impact on your storybook tale. While it could have been improved by adding some lasting effects, there is no denying your actions play a role. As for added frills, it allowed for you to even wear a dress and date whoever. While not my cup of tea, these smaller elements helped grab a player and give a sense of freedom. It also had an adventurous feel!

Indeed, for a smaller company like lion head, it showed promise and could have paved the way to a new franchise of sorts. So how was fable I the start of disappointment?

It fell short on many factors. The world had very few places to actually travel to overall, and because of publisher pressure planned content was cut. Longer childhood? Gone. Kids? Nope. Running a store? Not anymore. etc.

With features rushed or left out, some areas, like housing, start to appear like there should have been more. There were even some buildings that were unexplainablity empty, save for a chest, and no real factions besides the “hero guild.” All in all, this leaves you with a sense of a lone wanderer.

Game play wise, the game ended up being far too easy to beat, and with no difficulty slider, there is no way to solve the issue. Fable I leaves a sense of unfinished ends, and the closer you get, the more rushed it seems.

But there was hope! The main dev promised to not be deterred and a sequel was a sure bet. As it came around, claims were made that many of his original ideas were to be included, that this world would be more vast and that fable II was to be all that fable I was going to be.

As is true of many disappointments, it did not live up at all. Fable II is clunky in execution, once again wad brought under by release pressures. To make matters worse, it became a PR disaster as public outcry for a PC version was improperly handled.

Devs were even quoted as saying that while they were aware the game would make more money should it have a PC release, the answer was still no. This left many gamers feeling spurned and asking “what happened to the money made from fable I?”

Fable III is already listed on this article, but besides it’s stated issues, it suffers from some measure of lost identity and the story elements that made fable such a strong title took a huge blow. It is all this that demonstrates our disappointment as gamers.

Fable came out with a bang, showing everyone what could be done, but then never improved. With each release, the anticipation has been thick, and the fans have clearly been craving what could have been a big name for many years to come. Each time however, Fable has become less and less impressive, making it more like a one trick pony.

Goran

Dude, if you are white and your white wife produced a black child in real life, would you consider it a) a bug, or b) a reason to kill a black man?

Randy Nickel

I would put Mass Effect 3 in the number one spot and maybe make Fable 3 number two; Dragon Age 2 would have to be in the top five as well.

Fox

Omg I’m so with you on brink. That was the first game I ever pre ordered. I expected so much from it and all it did when i got it was become an instant black hole.

not-shyguy

there is alot of disapointing game’s but as currently i am exploiting that nintendo is just getting worse every game and make’s it seem that they make profit on the fact that sega, namco bandai and serveral others are making good game’s the greatest disapointment i had so far is the damn 6th gen of pokemon =.= when wil they quit milking this shit out?

randomnessszzzz

Oblivion..one of the best?? ROFL Isaac dude…no just no oblivion was shit.compare oblivion with morrowind for example. Morrowind item wise had so much more the combat was morrowind’s downfall but it toppled oblivion. The character creator was terrible in oblivion the face and head looked mutated. Oblivion also removed a shit ton of equipment. Oblivion was one of the worst elder scrolls games ever made and it really sucked for the most part…one of the best lol yeah ok

Batfreak

Your article needs a lot of editing.

Christopher W Collins-Meanea

Probably because Halo Reach was not Disappointing at all.

Batfreak

Also lots of spelling, grammar, and syntax errors.

sam

You really should title The Five Most Disappointing Video Games of This Generation (to me)

Zach

how butt hurt is this guy over Fable 3? lol

Fish61324

To me, the most disappointing game was GTA IV…..

After playing GTA San Andreas, I couldn’t wait for Grand Theft Auto on “next gen”. I couldn’t wait to fly jets, drive tanks, hit awesome jumps, collect a bunch of collectibles, explore a giant map, use the Gatling gun, drive a monster truck, doing stadium events, parachute, discover and fly the vast array of air craft….

Oh wait, GTA IV didn’t have ANY of that. DLC doesn’t count (I refused to buy either of those crap DLC).

GTA IV was such a hugely disappointing game….

higuide

bish please when halo 4 came out, next thing more typical complaining and excuses followed by halo reach sound like the greatest in the series, years before same kind of complaining but that time it was halo 3 see a pattern?

eviltaco

Point: Your review of fable 3 isn’t even on the first 3 pages. Why not add a direct link next time?